Brachytherapy treatment systems may treat a patient by inserting a hollow treatment device (aka “applicator”) into or close to a patient's target tissue, such as a prostate gland, a breast, a cervix, or other accessible areas in which a tumor is located. The treatment applicators are connected outside the patient's body with an after-loading apparatus having a radiation delivery unit for advancing one or more energy emitting sources through the catheters, which deliver doses of radiation to the patient's target tissue.
A successful brachytherapy treatment may require careful planning to determine the location and boundary of the target tissue within the patient. In addition, the radiation dose applied to the patient via the applicator may need to be carefully controlled to effectively treat the cancerous cells, while limiting the exposure of adjacent tissues or organs to undesired levels of radiation.
Conventional brachytherapy planning systems may use computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonant imaging (MRI) to visualize the target tissues and the surrounding organs of the patient for purpose of treatment planning. For example, CT images may be acquired from the patient after the applicator is placed in the patient. The CT images may be used to determine the location of the applicator's position relative to the patients' anatomy and to delineate organs at risk and target tissue (e.g., tumor delineation). However, tumor delineation may be difficult on CT images due to poor soft tissue contrast and thus introduce uncertainties in treatment planning. Although MRI images may provide high-contrast information and allow easy visualization of the target tissues, MRI equipment and procedures are expensive and may not be available to many patients.
Therefore, there exists a need for the development of tools to improve the quality, increase the accessibility, and reduce the costs of the brachytherapy procedure.